All Roads Lead to District Energy
Monica L. Westerlund, Executive Editor, District Energy
All roads lead to district energy. At least that’s the way it
seemed at the World Bioenergy Conference this past May. A
conference tour bus picked us up at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm,
and the pace was set for the week. We weren’t going to just
travel from Stockholm to Jönköping, we were going to learn
something along the way.
The person sitting next to me – the first person I met at
the conference – was from Ethiopia. His excitement was palat-
able. His country’s largest industry is sugar cane, and he already
knew the potential
that held as an energy
source. He came to
the conference hop-
ing to learn how to
develop sugar-based
ethanol plants and
was already working
with Swedish
researchers to try
to get a project
under way.
Ena Energi AB in Enköping, Sweden, (plant
in background) produces and distributes
district heating and electricity within
Enköping, population 20,000. Its primary
fuel is biofuels, one of which is willow trees.
The company has its own willow fields,
shown here, and rotates and harvests the
crop for its use every three years.
We stopped at
three locations:
Enköping, to see a
sustainable combined
heat and power plant;
Katrineholm, to tour
the Forssjö Bruk pellets factory (located
at a sawmill that has
been in existence
since the 1500s); and Nörrköping-Händelö, to visit Sweden’s
first large ethanol plant. [All told the conference featured 31
tours to bioenergy-related sites (many of them combined heat
and power facilities) at 43 cities in southern Sweden.]
The preponderance of venues reflects the country’s energy-use profile. According to Sweden’s Maud Olofsson, minister for
Enterprise and Energy and deputy prime minister, 40 percent of
Sweden’s energy use comes from renewable energy. It likely has
played a role in Sweden’s ability to increase its gross domestic
product by 40 percent while reducing its emissions 9 percent
since 1990.
Yet Olofsson stated that a fierce debate continues over the
country’s remaining reliance on fossil fuels. She emphasized that
neither Sweden nor any other country can afford to sit still if
they want to maintain stable economies. “Time is not renewable,” said Olofsson. “We need a new industrial revolution.”
Another tour took us to Växjö, which won the Sustainable
Energy Europe Award 2007 in the Sustainable Community
Category for its work to become a fossil fuel-free city. The
award was given by the European Commission campaign for
sustainable energy in Europe.
At the heart of the city’s success is its combined heat and
power system, which began using biofuel for district heating in
1980. Today, biofuel represents more than 90 percent of the
system’s energy supply. Within the city’s heating sector, emissions have been reduced by 76 percent since 1993. This is
attributed to the massive increase in biofuel use and expansion
of the district heating system. (Visit www.veab.se and select “In
English” at the top for more information.)
A tour at the conclusion of the conference highlighted the
country’s integrated approach to its energy challenges. We
stayed right in
Jönköping and visited
a biogas production
facility. Biogas is produced by the city’s
sewage treatment
plant, which is fueled
with heat from the
city’s district heating
system, which uses
municipal waste. The
resulting biogas that
district heating helped
produce? It is used to Located in a setting that reflects its major
fuel city buses. Indeed, fuel source, the main combined heat and
in Sweden, all roads power plant in Växjö, Sweden, primarily
lead to district energy. burns wood chips and sawdust.
messages about other bioenergy applications. Brazil, for example, produces
the majority of its transportation fuel
from sugar cane. Gasoline is now the
‘alternative’ fuel in Brazil.
Energy prices and scarcity have
pressured many countries into being
innovative with biofuels for decades.
Can such advances be made in the U.S.?
Paul Dickerson, chief operating officer
in the Office of Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department
of Energy, participated in the conference’s
opening session. “It took many years to
put ourselves into today’s situation, and
it will take many years to get out of it,”
he said. Reporting on Dickerson’s speech,
the conference Web site later posted an
article titled “The giant has awakened –
the United States invests heavily in
bioenergy.” It began as follows:
“In recent years the United States has
been tarred as the world’s environmental
hooligan. This image is rapidly changing
and in reality there has been more
progress than has been apparent from
the actions of the federal government.
“A strong American presence was
noticeable at the 2008 World Bioenergy
Conference and Trade Fair in Jönköping.
One of the opening speakers was Paul
Dickerson of the U.S. Department of
Energy. He thanked Swedish Minister for
Enterprise and Energy Maud Olofsson
that Sweden has shown the way. But the
U.S. is rapidly catching up: In 2007 alone it
invested a billion dollars in renewable
energy production.”
Current market conditions for coal,
oil and gas are suggesting that things
have to change. The old argument “it
can’t be done here” might no longer
hold true.
Robert D. Smith, PE, is vice
president of RMF Engineering Inc.
He served as IDEA's chair from
2007-2008. At RMF, he manages
the design and construction of
central plants for generating
steam, chilled water and power. Smith may be
reached at rdsmith@rmf.com.
